Chapter 17 The Office of Consola
There are some people who seem to be specially gifted for the
office of Comforter and Consola. The sorrowing and troubled are
attracted to them, as steel filings to a magnet, or as thirsty ones
to a spring of water. The paths to their doors are
worn by the passing feet of many weary ones. No office among men
is more sacred, or fuller of blessing, for in no other field
can wider opportunity be found for rendering helpful service
to sorrowing and troubled humanity. It was to this service, in an
eminent degree, that Christ was set apart. He said of Himself
that the Spirit had sent Him to heal the brokenhearted, His
whole ministry was one of consolation to the sorrowing. The weary and
the heart-sore came to him with their burdens. The penitent crept
to his feet with their confessions. Mourners sought his sympathy,
and wherever he went he carried cheer, hope, and inspiration. No one who came to him with a
trouble went away uncomforted. His deep and ready sympathy and
His gentle, uplifting help made Him preeminently a consoler. Those who would follow in Christ's
footsteps and repeat in their human measure His ministry of
love and beneficence in this world must strive to be sons
of consolation. There's always need for this
sacred ministry. Wherever one may live, there
is no other human experience that one is so sure of meeting
as sorrow. In other respects men differ—in
race, in color, in social condition, in culture, in degrees of refinement,
in customs and modes of life—but in one respect All are alike. All have sorrow. There are many
languages spoken on the earth, and the traveller oft times finds
himself unable to understand the word that falls upon his
ear. But there is one language that he finds the same in all
zones, in all conditions. The Language of Grief Everywhere
there are tears telling of sadness. There is no circle in which there
is not some heavy heart. We pass no day in which we do
not meet with those who are oppressed with some open or secret grief. An old clergyman once said to
a company of students he was addressing that they ought never
to conduct a Christian service without some word of comfort
for the troubled, for they would always have some troubled ones
in their audience. Wherever we go, we come upon
those who long for sympathy and whose hearts are crying out for
comfort. Therefore, those who have learned
to comfort others have found a ministry of great usefulness. It was the early prayer of Mrs. Prentice who has helped so many
weary pilgrims heavenward. Oh, that this heart, with grief
so well acquainted, Might be a fountain rich and sweet and
full For all the weary that have fallen and fainted In life's
parched desert, thirsty, sorrowful. O man of sorrows, teach my lips,
That often have told the sacred story of my woe, To speak of
you Until stony griefs I soften, Until those that know you not
learn you to know." Her prayer was answered, for of this gifted
woman after her death it was said with great truthfulness,
hers was in an eminent degree the blessing of those who were
ready to perish. weary, overtaxed mothers, misunderstood
and unappreciated wives, servants, pale seamstresses, delicate women
forced to live in an atmosphere of drunkenness and coarse brutality,
widows and orphans in the bitterness of their bereavement, mothers
with their tears dropping over empty cradles. To thousands of
such she was a messenger from heaven. To receive such eulogy
when one's work is finished is better than to have died amid
the richest splendors of wealth or to have had the paeans of
fame sung over one's grave. The anointing to the office of
consola is usually an anointing of tears. Only those who've learned
in God's school of experience can be the best comforters of
others. It was thus that Christ himself
was prepared to be the great comforter. It is because on earth
he was tried in all points as we are that now in heaven he
is touched with the feeling of our infirmities. Even his divinity
did not qualify him for sympathy. He must learn by actual human
experience what sorrow is. that he might be the comforter
of sorrow. It is in the same school that
God ordinarily trains His children for this sacred office. He may
not take them through bereavements, but there are many other kinds
of suffering in which hearts may be schooled. Some learn their
lessons in early struggles with adversity or with temptation.
or with the weakness and sin in their own natures, or in disappointments,
self-denials, and afflictions. Many who seem to common eyes
to have escaped the sorrows of life have yet in many ways been
trained and disciplined, and their hearts chastened and softened
and cleansed of the hardness and selfishness of nature. so
that they are well prepared to understand the experiences of
others in struggle and sorrow, and give true and wise consolation. This is one of the rich compensations
of affliction. If we endure it Christianly,
we learn the preparation for one of life's most sacred ministries. As to the manner in which this
ministry of consolation may be performed, but few suggestions
can be made. If the consoler's heart is prepared
for it, no rules will be needed. Genuine sympathy is the basis
of all true and wise comfort. We must enter into the experiences
of those to whom we would minister comfort. We must understand their
grief. This will make us truly sympathetic
in the presence of their trouble. If we could read the secret history
of those about us who now oft times try our patience by their
harshness of temper and disposition you would probably find in their
lives sorrow and suffering enough to explain to us the infirmities
which so mar their character. True sympathy draws us very close
to the sufferer. It also gives us that thoughtfulness
and that delicacy of feeling and touch which make us gentle
in all our treatment of grief. For no other ministry is refinement
of spirit so essential as for that of dealing with pained or
wounded hearts. A wrong touch, or a harsh word,
or the quick flash of an eye, may do irreparable harm, only
opening afresh, with new pain and torture, the wound it was
meant to heal. Hence there is deep significance
in the prophet's portraiture of Christ's gentleness in dealing
with crushed hearts. A bruised reed he will not break,
He never caused needless pain to the bruised heart which he
meant to soothe. No touch of his was ever crude,
no word of his was ever needlessly harsh. We need in like manner
the most delicate gentleness for the offices of comfort. We
need also victorious faith as well as gentleness to fit us
for the ministry of consolation. We cannot give what we have not
ourselves to give. How can we communicate strong
faith in God and in His Word if our own hearts are full of
doubts and misgivings? How can we kindle the lamps of
hope and courage and joy in another's heart, where all is dark, if
there be no lamps shining in our own breast? A true comforter
must know deep Christian joy, joy that springs up amid sorrows
like a sweet fresh spring under the tides of the brackish sea. One woman wrote to another in
deep grief, The shadow of death will not always rest on your
home. You will emerge from its obscurity into such a light as
those who've never sorrowed cannot know. We never know or begin
to know the great heart that loves us best until we throw
ourselves upon it in the hour of our despair. This writer herself
knew the joy which she foretold to her sister, now walking in
the deep shadow. One who had had sorrow, but had
never gotten out into the sunshine, could not have given such comfort.
Bright, radiant, victorious faith is essential in one who would
give real consolation. One who has not come, as a conqueror
through Christ, out of affliction, but has been crushed and still
lies in the dust of defeat, cannot minister comfort to others. A
vanquished soldier cannot inspire courage and hope in another who
is going out to battle. We must be overcomers ourselves
if we would help others to overcome. We must be truly comforted by
God if we would comfort others. As to the quality of the comfort
itself that is ministered, it should be more than pity. Mere
pity alone leaves the heart weaker than before. Wise and true comfort
must give something that shall prove strength and inspiration
to the fainting spirit, and help it to rise again. It should be
like the wine which the angels of mercy pour into the lips of
the wounded on the fields of battle to revive them. The design
of comfort is not merely to help the sorrowing through their sorrow,
but to help them to get from the sorrow the blessing it has
for them. To take from God the message
of love which the sorrow bears and to come from the experience
stronger, purer, more radiant, with more of Christ's image glowing
in their face. Wise and really helpful comfort
While it is touched by the friend's sorrow and shares the pain, yet
it strives to put hope and strength into the sad heart, that, recognizing
God's hand and submitting to it, it may yet take the blessing
which the dark-robed messenger brings. In no experience of life
do most people need wise friendship and firm guidance more than in
their times of trouble. There are dangerous shoals skirting
all the depths of affliction, and many frail barks are wrecked
in the darkness. It is the office of the one who
would give godly comfort to pilot the sorrowing past the shoals
to the safe and radiant shore. For this, a firm hand is needed,
as well as a tender heart.